drinking too much on that occasion, there can be no doubt but his daughters contrived some way to deceive him, by mixing wine with his food, or drink of water, till he became senseless.
As to the case of Jacob, in the matter of his lying to his father, when he said that he was the man Esau, this was far enough from being a good act, but was actually a wicked one.
But was not this sin reproved during the night, in which he slept on the mountain, at which time he was converted to God by the operation of the Holy Ghost, when he had the dream of the celestial ladder, and when he awoke and said: "God is in this place, and I knew it not." Gen. xxviii, 16.
Surely, this account is something more than a mere silent entry of the sin of lying, as it is a tacit record at least of the reproof, for how could it be pardoned except reproved and repented of? And besides, do not the Divine oracles every where reprove all liars, and in the New Testament threaten them with hell fire?
Thus briefly have we endeavored to rescue the character of the Bible, and the characters of two good and holy men, Noah and Lot, from the aspersions of a lawless pen — which pen, for no other purpose in the world, than by any means to get it to be believed that Moses did not, in the law, allow of direct slavery, has been willing thus to write, and to mystify the minds of readers, attempting to show that Moses, in all that he has said on the subject of slavery, has merely made a record of the crime, without reproof; though, as it happened, the crime was
